Gravel removal

The owners of this property before us landscaped the entire lot around the house in a “Japanese rock garden” style. This means that every square inch of ground was covered in pea gravel. One of the first things we had to do was to find someone to remove the gravel. We found a demolitionist through a friend’s recommendation.

The idea of all this gravel going to the dump, after so much energy and fuel had been used to mine it and put it here felt like it was going against everything we stand for. Yet, if we wanted to grow food and plants along with safely of hosting infants and young children here, we had to remove the gravel.

The night before the work, I felt sick. Finally, I walked outside to the garden and said some words to any invisible caretakers of the garden that might exist: “Please help us to care for this garden in a way that honors the earth herself. Help us and the people who we hire to do this work in the highest and best way for the earth and all of creation.”

The next day, the crew showed up to remove the gravel, and as they were leaving, the head of the team remarked, “This is perfect, because I had a septic system install at another site that needed a lot of fill, so I used all of this gravel over there.” Several tons of gravel repurposed. Waste saved on two sites.

Back and side yards during gravel removal

We got lucky. In hindsight, how could we have done this better?

We could have designed in to our plan the time to intentionally locate a removal service who could bring it to a new home and/or to find that site ourselves through craigslist, calling contractors etc. Doing things the right way often takes some more time and effort, because we have to go against the system we’ve created, which makes it easier for the people and businesses downstream in flow of goods and services to buy new and throw things out. We have to go against the current to dispose of our waste in a way that it can be recycled or decompose properly. Our hope is that the more people who care in our generation to take this time and effort, the more there will be a need for people and services that facilitate this process, which could eventually re-make our economy into more of a “Cradle to Cradle” system.